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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25239019">This Isn't How the Stories Go</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake'>DilynAliceBlake</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Incest, M/M, Sibling Incest, Soulmate AU, Soulmates, Twincest, they might be out of character, you can just deal with it</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:54:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25239019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DilynAliceBlake/pseuds/DilynAliceBlake</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Remrom soulmate au.  Roman finds out Remus is his soulmate in junior high.  Then promptly makes the worst of it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Roman is young, he can’t wait to find his soulmate.  They’ll kiss, and their heads will tilt to the right just like in all the movies.  Magnetism or fate, it’s all the same to him.  What matters is that one day he’ll go to kiss someone, and discover his true love when their heads move right instead of left.  He just knows that it will be magical.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In Junior High Roman makes the part in what he considers to be the beginning of what will be a wondrously successful acting career.  The only problem?  It requires an onstage kiss.  Roman has never kissed </span>
  <em>
    <span>anyone</span>
  </em>
  <span> before, and while he knows it’s unlikely that he’ll find his soulmate at twelve, the thought of kissing someone and Matching in front of the whole auditorium makes him nervous. Of course, the idea of discovering his soulmate is only the second obstacle.  The first is not being so bad at kissing he gets laughed off the stage.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What if we Match, but I mess it up so my soulmate hates me forever for humiliating her in front of everyone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really don’t think Valerie is your soulmate,” Remus grumbles from the top bunk.  (Remus sleeps on the top bunk because he asked Roman if he would rather get crushed to death in the event of a sudden earthquake, or take the top and then have to live with killing his brother.  He asked because Remus was apparently equally fine with either, and wanted Roman to be able to live or die with whatever he chose ahead of time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t get earthquakes where they live, but when Roman brought that up Remus just grinned and mentioned shoddy construction and unlikely not being the same thing as impossible.  Roman decided he would rather die in his sleep than wake up alone as part of the reason Remus was dead, and they hadn’t talked about it since.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She could be, though!” Roman argues, “You don’t know until you kiss them and your head does the thing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does it really bother you that much?” Remus asks, dangling himself bodily over the edge so he can peer upside down into Roman’s bunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m good at acting,” Roman says, “I’ve been practicing for years.  We play Imagine all the time.  But I don’t have any practice kissing at all.”  Roman pouts his lips in that way that means he isn’t going to say what he wants out loud, so please, will Remus bring it up for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to practice kissing?” Remus suggests in an exasperated huff, flipping completely so that he falls precariously onto the lower bunk.  He always flips himself over the rail guard to get down, when he isn’t jumping from the top or launching himself from the ladder halfway across the room.  Roman admires the dramatics of Remus’ execution of pretty much everything.  Remus does casual like Janus does genuine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus is used to saying what Roman isn’t brave enough to; it’s his job to be the first to cross lines his brother is nervous about.  Roman is severely aware of how others perceive him, constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing and being ostracized and disliked.  Reputation and rumors can make or break an actor, after all.  Maybe that’s why, when they lean in to touch lips and both of their heads tilt to the right instead of the left, Remus looks elated while Roman feels crushed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus had never suspected, but he had hoped.  Hope is different from belief something is actually possible, so saying Remus feels ecstatic is putting it mildly.  It doesn’t occur to him that it might be a revelation for which Roman himself is not ready until he’s pushed unceremoniously from the bed and out of Roman’s life.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>They don’t talk about it.  Not the days leading up to the play when Roman won’t even look at Remus.  Not the night of the play itself when Roman kisses Valerie and their heads both tilt to the left just like Remus had first assured him they would.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t talk about it when they’re fifteen, Remus out and proud and Roman still dating girls he knows will never be </span>
  <em>
    <span>The One</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his head, Roman calls the entire ordeal a fluke.  One day he’ll meet his real soulmate, or else he’s broken and he doesn’t even have one at all.  Sometimes he pretends it never happened so well that he even forgets, for a moment, why he and Remus ever quit talking to one another.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At first, Remus still tries to talk to Roman.  About other things, when it’s clear Roman won’t admit to what happened, but he can never say anything without wanting to yell about how perfect they are for each other. If Roman would just admit it and let it happen, everything would be perfect.  The way they understand and complement each other as foils is enough, though, that nothing has to be said out loud at all.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Years trickle by, and eventually Remus accepts that Roman doesn’t want him in his life.  He quits trying to start up conversations, and tries not to be so desperately pathetic.  He’s hardly the only person in the world to have been rejected by their soulmate.  Roman wants to move on?  Well, Remus will make it easy for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The day comes that they’re set to officially graduate high school, and Remus ducks away as soon as the certificate is in hand.  The scroll in the ceremony is purely a prop; the actual paper is given days before, in their homeroom class.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus has cut classes so many times that people were surprised he managed to pass highschool at all- No one batted an eye when he walked out considering there was less than a week left of classes for seniors at all.  Roman was so good at avoiding him by that point that no one noticed he was gone at all until during the ceremony they called his name and he wasn’t there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roman walks onto the stage alone, and tries to ignore the aching absence of his brother while he tells himself that surely he did what was best for both of them.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s a hole that stays in Roman’s life.  Every part he lands or audition he flops, he wants to turn to his brother and share what happened, but Remus isn’t there.  It’s an urge he thought he’d gotten over, but now Remus isn’t even there to watch Roman’s calendar fill up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Remus isn’t there for his first speaking role, or the stupid soap commercial he maybe shouldn’t have agreed to sing the awful jingle for, or the modeling shoot Roman does for a shoe brand that doesn’t even show his face but still pays enough to keep the heat on.  It’s intensely lonely, Remus’ notable absence from all the things he wants his twin there for, but it’s worse on the days he can’t escape from the cause of their falling out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>On Valentine's days Roman watches the first kiss commercials and jewelry advertisements, and can never quite stop himself from thinking about what kind of gifts Remus would like.  When he tries to force relationships he never makes it more than two dates without his mind whispering about how hopeless this all is when he already threw away his Match.  Every kiss that Roman forces himself to do is another tilt to the left, and even without the Soulmates factor he knows that no one else could possibly measure up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Roman gets his first apartment, he spends a whole month sleeping on the floor of the bedroom.  He didn’t bring the bunk beds with him, and the lone air mattress he has is laughably bare against the empty space of the rest of the room.  So he got a real bed, from box spring to frame, only to immediately think about how Remus wasn’t there to help him fill it.  Every time he gets into bed he lies in the middle.  Every time he wakes up, he’s on the right, the other side cold and unoccupied in direct opposition to his dreams the night before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Roman fakes a smile and minds his manners.  He’s good enough at acting that no one wonders what his ego is compensating for- they think he’s just an asshole, instead of someone lonely and miserable because of his own stupid decisions.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first thing Remus does with the money that was supposed to be for his first semester of college is get a tattoo.  He wasn’t upset because Roman had decided people’s opinions were more important than his soulmate.  It didn’t even irk that Roman basically chose his career over his twin brother.  What stung the most was that Roman insisted that they were a fluke.  He refused to come within two feet of Remus, and still talked about his future True Love like some faceless theoretical.  Roman had wholesale denied what he and Remus had altogether, rather than face up to the facts and acknowledge what they had long enough to actually properly reject him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So Remus spreads his heartbreak out in colored ink on his skin.  A beautifully crafted cage over his heart, its door wide open.  Remus’ heart had flown the coop.  If you love something, after all, you set it free.  Letting him go wasn’t even hard- Roman would never have been happy with him.  He had dreams, and he would be able to focus on them better without the potential scandal and distraction.  That’s all Remus ever seemed to bring anyone.  He couldn’t blame Roman for having standards.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Added to the trouble of being rejected by his soulmate is being rejected by his twin.  Roman and he spent nearly thirteen years living out of each other’s pockets, and the idea that Roman could just.  Stop talking to him, throw that all away.  It had never occurred to Remus.  If he’d had even an inkling that being practically disowned was a possibility- Well, suffice to say he never would have let the kiss happen.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No use crying over spilt entrails.  He had a life to build, somewhere no one would ever look at him and see half of a set.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Remus doesn’t set out to go into the film industry, but he’s a creative at heart, and good enough at what he does that he ends up introduced to someone who knows someone who likes what he does.  What Remus does is a mix between actual makeup artistry, face painting, and gore.  Sculpt enough things with more eyes than teeth and suddenly everyone wants your input on their independent project.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The real reason Remus doesn’t mind, besides earning enough money to eat by splashing fake blood everywhere, is because the stage will always remind him of his brother.  He’s careful not to follow Roman’s career, else he risk stalking him, but being close to people acting is almost like sharing something with him.  It goes well for a surprisingly long time before suddenly Roman gets cast in something Remus is working on, and it’s a little closer than he was hoping to be.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>well it's not like it was just abandoned.  i got around to it eventually.  translation: im so sorry this took so much time but look a new chapter!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Remus walks into work for a particularly interesting alien romance novella turned film.  It's not the most ideal way to find out that the up and coming unknown they’ve cast as Love Interest Number Two is not, in fact, so unknown.  One moment he’s bouncing into the dressing rooms in a swirl of lace and spikes, whirling from one vanity to another to make sure all his supplies are in the right place.  The next, he catches sight of Roman and quite abruptly freezes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” he says, and that’s all.  Just, “<em>Oh</em>,” and then he’s gone from the previous buoyant excitement to a uncharacteristically demure walk.  He looks everywhere in the room except for where he wants too.  Artistic flair folds itself away into polite professionalism, and Roman suddenly feels every second of the distance he’s put between them.  For the few moments before Remus saw him, when he had been flouncing gleefully about completely in his element, Roman had felt the sort of stomach swooping awe that people read about in fairy tales.  And then his mere presence had crushed everything wild and free about Remus into something unbearably <em>timid</em>.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits in his assigned chair, because he's only half in costume and the schedule isn't going to wait for his heart to stop swooping.  The nerves in his stomach refuse to settle.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The intimacy of Remus stroking the makeup brush over Roman’s eyebrow; of him leaning in and peering carefully to make sure each stroke is even, is nearly unbearable.  The scant few inches between them aren’t nearly enough to make the situation any less awkward.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you thinking?” Roman whispers, quiet and intimate, because “Did you miss me as much as I missed you?” would be a silly thing to say when he’s the one that drove them apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll have to go less heavy on the neon,” Remus murmurs.  “So it won’t clash with your complexion.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And that’s it.  The end of their exchange of words that first day.  Remus knows by now that certain things ought to be left unsaid, and Roman is too twisted up from seeing Remus again at all to get more words passed his tongue.  Neither of them rests easy that night.</span>
</p>
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